These
small group study notes of 1 Peter 1:13-25 contain outlines, cross-references, Bible study
discussion questions, lessons to learn, and applications. Feel free to
print them, copy them, or share them. I only ask that you remember these
are are personal study notes and are only meant as a supplement to your
own study, not a replacement. I hope you can find some helpful
information inside. Visit our inductive Bible study main page for more studies on this and other books of the Bible.

What is the motivation for the behavior
verses 13-16 encourage us to have?

How does Christ’s sacrifice motivate you?

What does it mean to “prepare your minds
for action?” Where is the battle for holiness in the life of a Christian won or
lost? Are your minds prepared? How to ensure that we are winning the battle in
our minds?

What does it mean to keep sober in spirit?
How can you keep sober in spirit?

Where are you fixing your hope? Let’s
imagine that an unbiased third-party examined your life to see where you fix
your hope; where might they look?

How can we take the way of escape when we
encounter temptations? Why does it say that these were ours in ignorance?

Do you want to be holy? Why?

What is our motivation supposed to be for
being holy? Define holiness.

Cross-references:

Php 4:8 – Whatever is true, honest, noble…meditate
on these things.

Php 2:5 – Have this mind which was also in
Christ Jesus.

Proverbs 17:22 – A joyful heart is good
medicine.

Matthew 15:11 – What comes out of a person
defiles him.

2 Corinthians 4:16 – Our inner self is
being renewed day by day.

Holiness –

2 Corinthians 7:1

1 Peter 2:9

1 Thess 4:7

Hebrews 12:14

Leviticus 20:26

Teaching Points:

1. The previous verses tell us of
the importance of the coming of the Messiah. For thousands of years the Old
Testament prophets studied the Scriptures in depth to try to find out more
about His coming and when He might come. The angels also wanted to know more
about it and still do desire to know more about His second coming. We are in an
extremely privileged position because much of what the Old Testament prophets
wanted to learn, we already know. We have the benefit of seeing a much larger
section of God’s plan than they did. We can learn from the life of Christ and
understand in depth God’s plan for redemption. Simply put, we KNOW much more
than they did. Yet how does this knowledge change us? What good does this
knowledge to us? What should we do because of this knowledge? That is what this
section of Scripture is about. Most of the rest of the chapter focuses on
practical application for believers.

2. Firstly, we are to prepare our
minds for action. This shows us two areas of the Christian life, the mind and
our behavior. Which one comes first? Obviously the mind. Our brain first
decides what it wants to do. Then it sends signals to our body. Then our
muscles respond to carry out the wishes of the brain. This mirrors a very
important Scriptural truth. That is, that the battle is fought in the mind.
Jesus alluded to this when He pointed out that we are guilty for our thoughts
(such as lust and hate) before God even if we didn’t do any wrong action. Yet
most of the time, a person’s thoughts will dictate his actions. Can you give
any biblical examples? The Pharisees’ jealousy led them to kill Jesus. Eve saw
that the fruit was attractive and so ate it. Joseph’s brothers were jealous of
him and so sold him as a slave. The list goes on and on. Every willful sin
first comes from an evil desire in the mind. See James 1:13-15. The battle is
in our mind (sometimes referred to as the heart, the center of our thoughts).
If you lose the battle there eventually your evil desires will be carried out.
How can we win this battle? How do we prevent ourselves from thinking evil
thoughts? Can we control it? If we win the battle in our minds and actively
focus on the things of God, we will naturally follow His will. So what can do
to ensure we win this battle?

a) Realize that what goes in is
what will come out. If we fill our minds with junk (bad music, movies, trash
books, silly romantic forums, vanity and gossip) then this will influence our
behavior. If we fill our minds with the things of God (Bible, Christian books,
Christian fellowship, verse memory, et.) then this too will show itself in our
actions.

b) Be proactive. Do not allow your
thoughts to run wild anywhere they please. You have to take control of your
thoughts. How? Evaluate whether the thoughts that pop into your mind are
edifying or not. If they are lustful or tempting in anyway, then STOP IT! Never
think that you can control it, that you will just enjoy fantasizing about the
temptation, but not do it. Don’t even start going down that road.

c) Don’t be idle. As you have
heard me say many times “an idle mind is the devil’s playground.” Keep yourself
and your mind busy doing good things. Don’t just sit around lazily or you will
be more likely to fall into temptation.

3.
The second part of that phrase
says “for action”. We prepare our minds by feeding ourselves the Word of God.
But it doesn’t stop there. We need to take action on what we know is right. It
is not enough to say “I should help the poor.” We must take action to do it. It
is not enough to say, “I should share the gospel with my family.” We must set
meetings or purposefully bring up the gospel in conversations with them. It is
not enough to say “I should read the Bible everyday” or “I should have times of
prayer and quiet times with person X.” We must do it. A plan without a strategy
is doomed to fail. And a strategy that is never put into motion is useless.

4. Keep sober in spirit. MacArthur
says that sober in spirit includes “steadfastness, self-control, clarity of
mind, and moral decisiveness.” We need to understand the importance of living
our lives for God. We need to understand the stakes of God’s battle with Satan
and Satan’s desperation to attack believers. We need to understand that the
world is scrutinizing everything we do looking for a reason to reject the
message that we preach. We need to understand that sin is serious, no laughing
matter. We need to take our responsibilities to our family, our brothers and
sisters in Christ, our neighbors, and our society seriously. Perhaps the
opposite of having a sober spirit is following the carefree lifestyle of “eat,
drink, and be merry.” Life is much more than this. Don’t waste your life.

5. Fix your hope. The first part
of this chapter was mostly about the living hope that believers have. This
living hope defines everything we do. Sometimes in this polluted world with a
myriad of new problems every day, it is easy to lose sight of this hope and get
bogged down in the business and hustle and bustle around us. This is why Peter
tells us to fix our hope completely on God’s grace. See Hebrews 12:2. To be
successful an athlete must fix his eyes on the finish line, the prize of
finishing first. For us to be successful, we must fix our eyes on Christ and
never let anything to take His place.

6. God’s grace has changed our
lives and holds us to new higher standards. We must not go back to our previous
way of life. While an unbeliever, we may have made excuses for our sins. In
some cases we might have actually thought that doing something wrong was
acceptable since everyone is doing it. Whether or not we had this excuse
before, now we do not. We know God’s commands. We know his standards. We are no
longer ignorant. So how can we fight lusts? How can we better ensure that we
don’t go back to our former lifestyle?

7. Verses 15-16 list the key character
quality Christians should strive for and why. That is holiness. We are to be
holy because God is holy. God is perfect, the Creator of the universe. He is
our ultimate example. If there is no God, ultimately there can be no standard
for determining right and wrong. There would be no reason for being moral
beyond the fact that it might make you feel good. But because God is true, He
defines the standards for all of creation. Since He is perfect we should strive
to be like Him. In the Old Testament you can see that worshippers of false gods
become like them. The worshipers of Baal that Elijah was challenging cut
themselves up when appealing to their god. Many times they worshipped their god
by committing gross sexual sins at the very temple of their god. A weak, sinful
god breeds sinful followers since a sinful god would never judge them for doing
the same sin. A righteous, just, holy, and loving God, inspires His followers
to ever greater heights. If you find that you are struggling with holiness (and
we all are), study and meditate on God’s character. Never be satisfied or
content with sin. Notice that this verse says we should be holy in ALL we do.
Not just some, 50% or 80% or even 99%. ALL. This is our goal. Is it attainable?
On our own it is not. But with God’s grace in every temptation we face we can
be victorious. Sin is not necessary. There is never a case where we “have” to
sin.

II. Verses 17-21

Discussion Questions

What do we learn here about the judgment?

What is the basis for the judgment?

How should this influence our actions?

Why does it say this should cause us fear
if we have already trusted in Christ?

What does redeemed mean?

What is the relationship between Christ
redeeming us and the judgment?

What do we learn here about “foreknown”?
How does relate to the fact that God foreknows the elect?

How is the period of time when Jesus came
referred to? Why is it called the last times? Are we still in these “last times”
or past them?

1. God is an impartial judge. He
does favor the rich or the poor. He doesn’t favor the famous or the weak. He
doesn’t favor man or woman, or any race. He is the perfect judge. He is
perfectly fair and perfectly just.

2. The basis for the judgment is
our deeds. Lately I have been reading through the book of Acts. Paul was on
trial, not really for anything wrong he had done. In the sight of the law, he
had done no wrong. But the leaders hated him and his cause. They therefore put
pressure on the judges who were deciding Paul’s case. These unfairly kept him
in prison with no evidence and though he had broken no law. Paul repeatedly
defended himself saying he had broken no law. But they didn’t care about his
actions, only about political pressure. The good news for us is that God doesn’t
care about political pressure. He will look just at our deeds and nothing else.
The bad news is that although we might be convicted based on the laws of our
country, our deeds will condemn in God’s sight because we have not lived up to
God’s standards (We live in fear knowing that God sees everything we do. If we
are practicing sin, we have reason to fear. We need to take sin and its
consequences seriously.). We all like fairness, right? Fairness makes a good
judge. The bad news is that none of us will be able to pass this judgment. So
we have good news and bad news. But the good news is that there is more good
news after that bad news.

3. The good news is that God knows
no one can pass this test and provided a way for us to be saved from judgment.
Christ. Christ redeems us. Nothing else can. No amount of money can save us. No
amount of materials. No amount of effort. Christ’s blood is the only thing that
can wipe out our debt and instate us to right standing with God. This blood is
precious. It’s precious because it belongs to God’s Son. He is innocent. He is
perfect. He didn’t deserve to die. Jesus is the most valuable thing in God’s
eyes, but God gave Him up for us. This was a very high price to pay. How should
this high price of redemption affect our lives now?

4. Obviously we should be
grateful. At the same time it should remind us about the seriousness of sin. If
sin wasn’t serious, Christ wouldn’t have had to die. But He did. Every sin we
commit is one of the reasons why Christ hung on that cross bleeding out in
front of the world. Every sin we commit held Him there. He had to suffer the
penalty for every sin we have and ever will commit. If our hearts are sensitive
to pain or suffering, this will touch us. Hopefully it will motivate us to STOP
IT. Stop sinning. Sin is not just forgiven for free. Sin must be punished.
Christ took it so we wouldn’t have to. That should motivate us to love and
serve Him.

5. He was foreknown. Here is
another use of that word. It indicates again that this word doesn’t just mean
God knew ahead of time. God didn’t just know ahead of time that Christ would
die. He planned it. The myriads of prophecies in the OT confirm that God
planned this ahead of time. Therefore when the Bible says that God foreknew the
elect it doesn’t just mean that He knew ahead of time we would believe. It
means that He ordained it ahead of time.

6. The last times – Between Christ’s
first and second coming is all the period of “last time” or “last days” or “last
day” or “last times”. We are in the final era of the world. If 2000 years ago
was already the last times, now it must be the last last times! The world is
drawing to an end. Are you redeeming the time? Are you ready?

III. Verses 22-25

Why should we love others? How should we
love others (sincerely and fervently)? Why can we love others?

How is the word of God described? Why are
these two adjectives (living and enduring) chosen? How is the word of God
compared to earthly things?

1. Our obedience is based on the
truth. While sharing the gospel, many have said, “The Bible is good. It has
good morals and principles inside. It shows us how to be a good person.” Their
idea is that the Bible has helpful principles for us to live by, yet they don’t
believe in God. They like the Bible because it shows us to do good deeds, but
they don’t accept its principle message or believe that it is THE truth.
However, if the Bible is not the truth, there is no point in studying it. There
is no point in obeying it. If it is not the true standard from God, then it is
just some dead peoples’ opinion and therefore doesn’t matter. But the Bible is
truth. We do what is right because we KNOW that it is right.

2. From the last verses, we see
one of Peter’s key concerns for the brethren. He exhorts the believers to be
holy, to purify our souls. This is one of our chief goals during our time on
earth. We are to be holy as He is holy. We are to be sanctified day by day.

3. As our souls are sanctified and
our heats are cleansed, this will affect our every day lives and our actions,
meaning that we will begin to show love to the people around us. Over a long
period of time this love cannot be forced or faked. True love must come from
our heart. People will feel it if the good things we do for them have our own
selfish motivation. True love cares only for the other person and is not
focused on oneself. Two words (one adjective and one adverb) are mentioned for
how we are to love others. The first is sincere. What are some examples of
insincere love? How about sincere love? Sincere love comes from the heart. It
comes with no strings attached and no catch. It is giving a gift with no
thought of return (James 1:27). The second word is fervently. We are to
fervently love others. This shows the degree we are to love others. It is not
halfhearted. It is not sometimes. It is not 80% (as in I will be nice to you
most of the time and that is OK). It is complete and willing to do anything in
our power for others just as Christ gave His very life for us.

4. This type of love is not
natural. In fact, our nature is dead set against it. BUT, we have been born
again. Therefore God gives us the strength to do it where we by ourselves would
fail.

5. The Word of God – It is living
and enduring. For many of the questions we ask in study (ie: how do we know God’s
character? How can we grow closer to Christ? How can we strengthen our faith?
How do we know God’s will? And about 50% of the rest of the questions asked in
Bible study) can be answered correctly “Bible.” But why is the Bible so
powerful? Why can the Bible change our lives? Because it is God’s Word. It is
living and active. It ministers to real people with real needs in real life
situations. It answers every important question we can ask about our life and
this world. It contains every guiding principle we need for how to shape our
character and direct our life. It contains everything we need to know about who
is our God, His character, and His standards for us. Virtually everything we
see around us will one day perish and be destroyed, but God’s Word endures. Its
power will never fade. Its truth will never change. Its message will never need
to be updated. It has eternal value and it can influence our lives and our
destiny for eternity. The things around us will fade in importance. Careers
end. Achievements fade with passing time. Success is forgotten. Power will
change hands. Physical fitness will fail. Fat bank account will grow empty.
Relationships (if not founded on God) may break apart. Homes and cars will get
broken. God’s Word still remains unchanged. It can and should change our very
lives. So what applications can we make from the fact that the Word of God is
living and enduring and FAR more important than the temporary earthly things
around us?

a)
Love it. The beginning of the
next chapter shows us that we need to crave God’s Word as newborn babies crave
pure spiritual milk.

b)
Memorize it. Get God’s Word
into our hearts so that we will not forget it.

c) Study it. Dig into it to learn
everything we can about God and His plan for our lives.

d) Read it. Keep reading it
through and through. Although we may have read it before, we will forget some
of it. Also we need to be reminded about the truths in it since our flesh is
sinful.

e) Teach it. We must share God’s
Word with others. Whether they know it or not, they need it. It is much more
important than whatever earthly things they are spending their time on. We must
pass it on to others and teach them to do the same.

f) Obey it. Don’t just know the
Bible. Don’t just build up spiritual knowledge. Apply it. Allow God to use His
Words to change our lives. It may not be easy. It may require losing face or
changing a habit that our flesh loves. Make the sacrifice for God. Offer your
body as a living sacrifice to Him.

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